SJES NEWS
December 2017
What is a Montessori Christmas Gift? A Montessori Christmas gift traditionally would be wooden and spark the imagination in multiple ways because it offers exploration. It would not light up or make a sound in an electronic way. There are numerous studies showing the effects of electronic toys and devices on the forming mind. This type of electronic play is thought to be a leading cause for a lack of focus in the classroom! It’s also important to not overwhelm the child with too many toys in their play space because that, too, leads to distracted play and a big jumbled mess to clean up. Depending on the age of your child, consider limiting the choice of toys. Change them out as the child shows a lack of interest in an item. If possible, offer a work rug much like the one your child uses in our classroom for the child to place the toy that they’re playing with on. This keeps the toy contained which in turn increases focus and the chances your child can successfully follow through with putting it away before playing with something else. I’ve added a few of our favorite toys and shops for you to think about. Merry Christmas and a blessed New Year to each of you! Mrs. Loree
Montessori Services Small Hands Magic Cabin Alison’s Montessori Montessori n’ Such Melisa and Doug
Montessori Gift Guide For Toddlers
1. Jumbo Primary stringing bead set by Skoolzy 2. Melissa and Doug Beginner Pattern Blocks 3. Guidecraft Jr. Rainbow Blocks 4. Grimm’s Small Rainbow Nesting Wooden Blocks Stacker, “Elements” of Nature: AIR by Grimm’s Spiel & Holz
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5. Melissa & Doug Fold and Go Mini Barn 6. Plan Toys Cone Sorting 4.
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1. Play Dough Tools Set from Melissa & Doug. 2. Duplos from Legos. 3. Geometric Board from Cake in the Morn. 4. Wooden Lacing Toy from Smiling Tree Toys. 5. Beginner Pattern Blocks from Melissa & Doug. 6. Cooperative Games from Richard Scarry’s Busytown. 7. Floor Puzzles from Melissa & Doug. 8. Bristle Blocks from Battat. 9. Classic Tricycle from Radio Flyer. 10. Matching or Memory Game from eeBoo.
Dear Parents, It’s December – the most wonderful time of the year! It’s also one of the busiest times of the year at St. James. We have been as busy as Santa’s elves, making ornaments, decorating the Christmas tree, and practicing our songs for the upcoming pageant. We have also been preparing our hearts by reading stories about Jesus’ birth, and then “acting them out” with our nativity figures. The children’s eyes are wide with wonder and excitement about all that is to come! As we look forward to the holidays, we have focused on the colors of red and green, and learned to identify the star shape. We have talked about the difference between in and out, and are counting higher and higher! Our Spanish lessons include counting, colors, and nursery rhymes. We continue to emphasize Ava's sock matching skills may come in handy the importance at home! of respect in the classroom – for our teachers, for others, for our materials, and even for ourselves. Grace and courtesy lessons abound in our everyday activities. “Magic words” include please, thank you, and you’re welcome. When one child says thank you, and sees our happy response, there are always many more thank you’s to follow!
The Cheerio threading work also doubles as a snack for Daniela!
MDO
A friendly reminder: It is so important to have your child walk in and out of school, and carry at least one of their belongings. Dr. Montessori devoted an entire chapter of her book, The Secret of Childhood, to walking with a young child, going so far as to say that “a child who can walk must never be carried.” Please allow some extra time, adjust your pace to your child’s, and watch as they beam with their newfound independence! Lastly, we wish you and your families a warm and wonderful Christmas! Much love, Mary, Eva, and Pam
“For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given: and the government shall be upon his shoulder: and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, The mighty God, The everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace.”
Isaiah 9:6-7
Russell's wreath ornament is nearly finished!
Look at how nicely Ross has rolled up his work mat!
Toddler 1
‘Tis the season to be a toddler. Toddler 1 has been having so much fun creating art works for the season and helping others. This month our classroom is full of Christmas trees, ornaments and songs of great joy. Our art area has been green, red and even purple. We have been painting dot to dots, doing sticker works, color rubbing, stringing buttons and bells and experimenting with two colors at the easel. We also had gluing with glitter...how fun for toddlers to use glitter! On the easel, we painted with syringes and most of it actually made it to the paper!
As for practical life works, the highlight of the month has been learning how to put on our coats. With all the cold weather lately, wearing a coat outside has been very important. Has your toddler shown you how they are learning how to put their coats on all by themselves? “Tag by your toes, hands in the holes and over it goes!” We have also been practicing our Christmas program songs this month. I’m sure you have heard and seen your Toddler singing new songs and using hand motions. In Christian education we have been learning about Baby Jesus born in a manger. Happy holidays from all of us in Toddler 1! Mrs. Anna and Mrs. Andrea
It is hard to believe that the holiday season is here again and 2017 is almost over! As we are rushing around finishing up last minute plans so we can celebrate the holidays with family and friends, let’s not forget that toddlers can get overwhelmed very quickly. Though it can be very tempting and seem harmless to give our children our iPhones and iPads to entertain them while we finish up shopping, dining out, or cooking, young children who have too much screen time aren’t getting the chance to development many social skills. Toddlers especially, need lots of face to face interactions. This helps develop their speech and language, develop empathy for others, problem solve, and build patience and attention span.
Graycen sitting in our reading area, looking at a Christmas book.
Jones is transferring using a small spoon, while our first year toddlers are watching.
Caleb working with the flannel board, story of baby Jesus.
Toddler 2
All month the children have been painting with red and green, creating pictures with stickers and decorating our class tree. You may have heard them singing new songs as we are preparing for our Christmas program. Thank you for all who helped with the Christmas party and came to watch the performance. We are so proud of the children, they did great! Molly working on her fine motors, peeling stickers.
We hope everyone has a wonderful Christmas and New Year and we will see you all on January 3rd. Merry Christmas! April, Lilly, and Annabel
Aly and Carnes decorating an actual Christmas tree with ornaments.
When it is rainy or too cold to go outside we play with the imagination blocks. Barrett,Henry, Connor and August built this fort.
‘Tis the Season! Jingle bells, ornaments, and pageant songs! All these things describe one thing in Toddler 3 right now: Christmas is coming! We have been practicing our Christmas songs and the children are overly excited to sing them for you! We have been talking a lot about peace and helping one another in the classroom. Taking turns, sharing, and working together has become quite the focus in the Toddler 3 room. Normally, we encourage the children to choose their own work, but sometimes it is nice to have a friend’s help while working. Once the children become aware that they are sharing they start to help each other make connections they were not able to make while working independently.
Toddler 3
Some works that have become “sharing” works are: building a train track, block building, reading a story (they like to read to one another), and the flannel board. The children have also taken it upon themselves to share the sink in the bathroom to wash hands (pumping soap can be challenging at this age). You also will find the children helping each other throughout the day: putting on shoes, cleaning up work, finding one another’s jacket or water bottle. The children are enhancing their grace and courtesy skills by the practice of sharing and helping one another. Although, the Montessori philosophy is independently structured, compassion for each other’s work and being kind to one another is important when “growing a child.” We hope everyone has a great Christmas break. See you in 2018! Love, Ms. Coral, Amy, and Brenda
Oh the weather outside is frightful, but the fire is so delightful. And since we’ve no place to go, let it snow! Let it snow! Let it snow! Okay, it’s not exactly snowing outside, but we’ve had pretty chilly mornings during recess time. Please be sure to label all sweaters, coats, vests, or any clothing item that is worn to school. Thank you for helping us ensure that items are returned to the correct child. The chilly mornings that we have been experiencing definitely get us excited for the holiday season! This month has been nothing short of Christmas tree decorating, creating holiday artwork with red and green do-a-dots, festive stickers for the sticker work, creating pictures with gingerbread man stamps, sorting muffins by color, and dinosaur washing! Most of the children are still very much in a sensitive period for water, from transferring liquid, washing dishes, Davis is decorating the felt practicing sponging, taking Christmas tree. care of plants, to brushing teeth and toilet learning. The 2-hour work cycle is definitely a busy part of the day for the children.
Fitz is creating a piece of artwork with stamps.
Toddler 4
During circle time, we are enjoying language through many wonderful books, including seasonal themed books. The children enjoy listening to Room for a Little One and Santa Mouse. We have also had many discussions about Christmas and the birth of Jesus Christ. During our Christian education lesson, the children love to work with the nativity scene. As a group, we have worked hard on our Christmas songs for the Christmas Concert. Thank you to everyone for making it such a wonderful festive holiday tradition! Also, thank to all of our parents for being so supportive and attentive this year. We feel very blessed to have such wonderful caring families! “Now, what really makes a teacher is love for the human child; for it is love that transforms the social duty of the educator into the higher consciousness of a mission.” –Maria Montessori Thank you so much for letting us love on your sweet little ones and help guide them through their educational development during these imTop: Eleanor is working on portant early years. It is truly squeezing a sponge to remove a joy to experience many firsts excess liquid. Bottom: Penelope and Oliver and instill a love of learning! are working together to keep the indoor plants hydrated.
May you all have a very Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!! Love, Ms. Ashley and Ms. Anna R.
The children enjoy learning about the birth of Jesus Christ with the Nativity.
Toddler Christmas Pageant
Primary Christmas Pageant
We are so proud of our friends as we head into the holiday season. We have been very busy focusing on the task at hand, and honing our large and fine motor skills. We have seen a lot of second-year students being creative with their holiday stencil works, while a lot of first and second-year students continue to work on the metal insets. There has been a high interest in tackling addition math works together, such as the addition and subtraction work with cubes, as well as the teen board. It is important to note that the first-year students have been accomplishing the colored bead stair quite successfully. In addition to doing math, art, and other practical life works, such as Christmas bulb tonging, friends’ smiles have been infectious as people have been checking on each other throughout the day to make sure everyone is happy. Meanwhile, outside at recess, the boys and girls have enjoyed playing tag with each other, collecting acorns, and hanging out in the fort.
Everyone is really excelling academically, with third-year students working hard on their spelling with the moveable alphabet, and attempting the stamp game. We have had volunteers asking to help sweep the floor after snack, in addition to scrubbing the tables. Mrs. Amaris has also been bringing in her favorite stories from when her children were little, and reading them to the students. We have really enjoyed listening to them! Kindness and generosity has been abounding as we come to the end of our semester at St. James. We are very blessed to have such sweet, caring, and hard-working students in our class. We hope everyone has a safe and fun holiday. See you in the new year!! Much love, Ms. Martha and Mrs. Amaris
Primary 1
We have had a flurry of Christmas activities and works, along with all of the regular Montessori works, in our classroom. With the addition of the Christmas works, we have been very busy. And we have had fun busily preparing for Christmas. Stringing beads on pipe cleaners is a tradition in our classroom. The students string beads on pipe cleaners and hang them on our classroom tree. The older children start independently “patterning” the beads on the pipe cleaners. Their minds are very busy deciding which pattern and colors they want, then finding them in the bead basket.
Our tree looks beautiful. The students take the “ornaments” home when we leave school for the holidays.
Primary 2
Additionally, we have a Practical Life shelf full of Christmas themed works. Practicing the songs for the Christmas Program is always a favorite of ours. Listening to the students sing and learn the songs is just priceless. Merry Christmas and Happy New Year! Enjoy this blessed season with your children, families and friends. May we always remember to count our many, many blessings! Much love. All the best, Mrs. Barrineau and Ms. Sheila
Merry Christmas! We are looking ahead to January and are ready to start the New Year fresh. This month we will be focusing on a lot of new concepts. This month we will be studying the continent of Europe. Our younger children have been working hard and we see so much growth in their fine motor skills. They will begin to start writing on their own and continue to learn the phonetic sounds.
The second-year students are all reading and increasing their skills in beginning addition. They will be working on proper handwriting and writing sentences.
Primary 3
Our kindergarten kids are going to be focusing on more abstract math concepts and starting to write in paragraphs. They will be starting to work on spelling tests and how to spell common sight words. We are looking forward to the rest of 2018 and continue to be impressed with how hard the children are working. We hope you all have a blessed and Merry Christmas! Mrs. Eloise Mrs. Anna
Dearest Primary 4 families, There are so many lessons that present themselves this time of year. The children have been asking about the presents under the trees in the hallways and why some children don’t have as much as we do. It always leads into a discussion about what have and what we have to be thankful for. Grace and Courtesy lessons always flow so openly as the children can tell us what they are needing by their actions and their interests. For example, we read a book about patience that was brought in for show and tell, which led to lots of discussions about showing patience. What a hard thing patience is to learn! The children have all told me they are having a hard time being patient and waiting for Christmas, and presents. We took the discussion to another level when we talked about the meaning of Christmas. How the presents we give and receive on Christmas remind us of the best gift of all- Jesus. One of the works in the classroom this month is a nativity scene for them to build and talk about. Another is creating ornaments for the tree they get to decorate themselves. The key to building independence and courage in a child is to give them the tools to enable them to work and grow. The sky is the limit.
Writing works have become very popular this month. The younger children are starting to gravitate to tracing their names and working with the metal inset works, which are the beginnings to forming letters. The shapes of the metal insets- straight and curved lines- prepare the hand to start forming independent letters. To help build their hand strength we have been offering more difficult Practical Life lessons and lots of pricking. The pouring works require more hand control and dexterity. Spooning works have smaller parts to encourage the pincer grip that will later form into a strong pencil grasp. With the pageant we offer, music has also become an integral part of the classroom. The children have been practicing diligently with rhythm sticks and enjoy singing Christmas songs. It always amazes me how quickly they pick up on the words and can sing the songs without help. It seems after our first music lesson the children could remember all of the words and movements to the songs. It is just another amazing example of Maria Montessori’s theory of the “Absorbent Mind,” that sensitive period of childhood between birth and six years old when the young mind is like a big sponge. May we never forget the real reason for the season and all it can offer to us. We hope your holidays are full of happiness and family. Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year, Ms. Bianca and Ms. Brenda
Primary 4
The holidays are upon us! I cannot believe how fast this year has gone. It has been a quick couple of weeks in class, but we have had a lot of fun. One of my absolute favorite things to do with the children is make Christmas ornaments. The kids are so precious at this age - I want to capture a little bit of them in an ornament to hang on the tree year after year. The Kindergartners made salt dough ornaments and painted them, and the second-years made snowmen! I hope you will find a place to hang them on your tree! In addition to making ornaments, the children got to make festive Christmas paintings. The Kindergartners made a whimsical watercolor collage scene of Christmas trees in the snow. They painted their snowy background and then painted pieces of paper in a variety of colors. Once they were dry, they cut their paper into trees and glued them onto their background. Some of the children also chose to add snow to their paintings. They achieved this “snowy” look by splashing clean water on top of their painting. Since we used watercolor paints, the addition of water pulled the color off the page and made little dots of “snow.”
The second-year students also made Christmas trees, but instead of using a paint brush, they used forks! Painting with a different tool was challenging, but they did a great job! The fork made their Christmas trees look like they had fluffy branches! The children also added a star, a trunk, and painted ornaments on the tree with their fingertips. They created an entire painting without using a paintbrush! In Technology, the students finished their digital drawings and created a calendar! I hope you all enjoy the calendar that was sent home with your Kindergartner. I am so proud of all their hard work, and I love how the finished product turned out! We have also been having fun doing Christmas activities on the computer. ABCya.com has a great selection of age appropriate games and holiday activities to work with over the holiday break! Merry Christmas and Happy New Year! Ms. Hanna
Art & Technology
December in the Children’s
Garden
Unfortunately, I did not get to garden with the children this month because I was attending my Grandfather’s funeral. My Grandfather-Clifford Lee Eichlerhad just celebrated his 99th birthday. He lived a full, honorable, and exciting life. He was a recipient of the Purple Heart for his heroic acts while serving in the Navy during the bombing of Pearl Harbor. He raised 4 wonderful children and showed us all what it meant to be a true and loyal husband as he stood by my Grandmother’s side as she suffered and passed from Parkinson’s disease. I thought I’d share my “Ode to my Grandfather” with all of you because he truly is the one that inspired me to teach gardening your children!
My grandfather impacted my life in many ways but the way he connected me to nature most shaped my life. Grandpa Eichler created a backyard that was more like a child’s fantasy. I remember running along meandering paths through massive camellia and azalea bushes. There were impressive, towering pine trees, and cascading soft yellow rose bushes that made magical little nooks to hide in. There were always hummingbirds, lizards, and earthworms waiting to be discovered. Grandpa worked full time, but somehow also managed bird habitats, numerous potted ferns, flowering baskets, and extensive vegetable gardens. My favorite backyard experience has to be the incredible flying squirrel night showstoppers he created! The flying squirrel show was made by nailing lids halfway up the pine trees, smearing them with peanut butter and then stringing lights through the backyard. We would gather there at dusk and watch the squirrels glide from tree to tree in the glow of the night...absolutely magical. I spent hours playing and learning in that habitat. My grandpa always worked by my side in the gardens and although he was a man of few words he taught me how to plant, grow, and harvest with exuberance. I regret that I didn’t share with him that his passion became one of mine. I often feel him with me as I teach in our school’s garden. I pray that I can pass along a fragment of what he taught me about nature to the hundreds of children I work with each year. God bless, Grandpa.
All of the ASC staff enjoy spending time with the ASC kiddos. We are a large extended family that get to spend time together each afternoon. We will always try to have outside time, so please remember to send sweaters/jackets for your child. If we are not able to go outside we will use the Parish Hall as our playground so that children can have a large space to move around and play. Potty-training will begin in the MDO and toddler classrooms in January. If your child is potty-training and in ASC, please make sure that we have extra clothes. Typically, if your child is in the beginning stages of potty training, they will come to ASC in diapers or a pull up. We will still encourage using the potty chair and as they progress and they are using the potty on a more regular basis, we will keep them in their cotton underwear. As always, if you have any questions or concerns, please feel free to call me. ASC wishes all of our St. James families a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year! See you in 2018! Lisa Wilson
ASC
Dear Saint James Families, For the last few weeks in chapel we have been talking about the “great countdown” between Thanksgiving and Christmas. We spoke of how before Jesus was born the Israelites were waiting for a sign that the Messiah was born. We spoke of the bright star that drew three magi, or kings, to the one who would become the King of Kings. That same bright star brought the shepherds to Jesus, the lamb of God, who would take away the sins of the world. Another week, I told the children the story of the candy cane. Right side up it is a “J” for Jesus, turn it over and it looks like a shepherd’s crook. The candy cane is also an example of 3 in 1. The red could be for God the Father, the white, God the Holy Spirit, and the striped part for Jesus. “…by his stripes we are healed.” 1Peter 2:24 Mostly, we are discussing what Christmas is really about. Of course, it’s fun to give and receive gifts, to set out holiday decorations, and bake holiday goodies. I asked the children to remember through all of this that we are celebrating God sending his one and only son to be our salvation. We are celebrating the birth of the Prince of Peace who would show the world how we are to live. Jesus teaches us that we must love God with all of our heart, soul, mind, and strength and to love each other. That is the best way we can say thank you to God, and Happy Birthday to Jesus. “For unto you is born this day, in the city of David, a Saviour which is Christ the Lord.” Luke 2:11 Merry Christmas and Happy New Year! Ms. Amaris
Chapel